New Group & Big Firms Seek to Energize Reshoring

Return One Million Jobs debuts, while Walmart and Apple push for more U.S. manufacturing.

Article Post: 5/22/2017

Staff Report

In April, Walmart issued an “open call for U.S. products,” inviting companies to come to Bentonville, Ark., on June 28. Walmart said the event supports its bid to purchase an additional $250 billion in U.S. products through 2023. Interested companies can visit walmart-jump.com.

A week later, Return One Million Jobs (ROMJ) LLC was created to raise $20 million to bring one million manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. from offshore. Headed by Carl Carstensen, who recently retired after 37 years with IBM global cfonsulting services, the project will reportedly apply global data analytics to help companies compare the total cost of supplying the U.S. market via manufacturing offshore or domestically.

ROMJ is cooperating with the Reshoring Initiative. That group offers a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Estimator to help companies quantify the hidden costs of offshoring. Says Carstensen, “If they do the math, using the TCO tools and advanced data analytics, many manufacturers should want to return jobs to the USA to increase profits.”

Last month, Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC that Apple will start a $1 billion fund to promote advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S. The ultimate goal: making Apple products domestically.